"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall"Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman"A prominent Liberal Democrat blogger" - BBC Radio 4 Today programme"Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Carly Simon: It Was So Easy Then

This choice will annoy Iain Sharpe, but it serves him right for giving up blogging.

Carly Simon's LP "No Secrets" reminds me of taking my finals at York (a girl I knew had a copy) and also (along with Paul Simon's LP "One Trick Pony") of the summer I bought my house in the 1980s.

Iain says:

Carly Simon doubtless saw herself somewhere in the Carole King/Joni Mitchell singer-songwriter mould. But although ‘You’re so vain’ is one of the great put-down songs, there is little else here to move, inspire or amuse. Lacks King’s crisp turn of phrase and strong tunes or Mitchell’s powerful insights into the human condition.

It is many years since I listened to Carole King, but I have to agree that Carly Simon is not in the same class as Joni Mitchell. But I still like the "No Secrets" LP - except "You're So Vain", which I have heard so often that I can no longer listen to it.

In this recent live version of one of the songs on the LP Carly Simon is accompanied by Ben and Sally, the two children she had with James Taylor - who ought to have featured here by now too.

The superior version of this song from "No Secrets" is also on Youtube and the words aren't that dad are they?

And now we are grown, with debts and regrets
And broken hearts and sentimental schemes.
Now every tender failure seems to overthrow old dreams,
Love can lead a normal woman to extremes.